Your View: Fear remains hindrance to safe schools

We are all on probation awaiting the time when we know our children are in a perfectly safe school environment and have no or very little fear of violence in our schools.

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By WILLIAM H. CAREY

southcoasttoday.com

By WILLIAM H. CAREY

Posted Feb. 4, 2013 at 12:01 AM

By WILLIAM H. CAREY
Posted Feb. 4, 2013 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

We are all on probation awaiting the time when we know our children are in a perfectly safe school environment and have no or very little fear of violence in our schools.

We simply cannot risk a recurrence of what happened in Newtown, Conn., and continues to happen in schools around this country.

Students, parents, families, teachers and others must be genuinely fearful to go to schools. What was formerly a happy place to be is now a source of danger.

This is a problem we have had for many years. We in the United States have buried our hands and heads in the sand and do nothing about it. Our immediate short-term reaction of fear and disbelief seem to be winding down. The long-term effect of violence in our schools will go on forever until we come up with a solution that has top priority for us, namely, safe schools, which our children are mandated to attend.

This issue has received much publicity, including two articles recently in The Standard-Times entitled "Could shooting be a gun-control tipping point?" (Dec. 16), and "Some Republicans say gun control should be debated," (Dec. 18).

Today, this problem is a national disaster of top priority. It should not take a second place to any other consideration. The proposed solution by the National Rifle Association and particularly leader Wayne La Pierre to use more guns in schools is the exact opposite of what we need to preserve safety in an educational atmosphere.

It is a Band-Aid solution to a more serious problem, namely, the unexpected massive killings of school children in classrooms, where the law obligates them to be. Guns are and always have been instruments of violence. They are well described as weapons of mass destruction. That is exactly their intended use in Newtown.

The NRA, however, is a powerful lobbyist group in Congress and usually gets what it wants. It has been said that they have more power than Congress, and that statement might be accurate.

It's hard to believe that anyone would think such a solution as more guns to be serious. The motive of the NRA is to sell more guns and increase membership, which, from all reports is being accomplished. The NRA has never done anything worthwhile to protect the safety of children in schools in the United States.

There is massive data available from responsible experts as to how these acts of sudden violence could be reasonably prevented. In no study has the ownership of guns been an option. Most countries in the world can be proud of never having any violence in schools and do not use guns as a source of protection. With all the sources of professional security surveillance available today accompanied by mandatory background checks on those seeking access to schools, sufficient time for warnings of danger are available for school safety. Contrary to the law of Massachusetts and the support of the NRA, mental health records must become available in any background check.

If the United States can create the system, talent and the genius to bring a man to the moon and back safely, it certainly can create the mechanism to bring a student safely to a school and back home again.

It is true that an opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court (5-4) acknowledged that a citizen under the provision of the Second Amendment had the right to bear arms and it was not constitutional for the District of Columbia to abridge citizens of that right by any law of the District of Columbia.

The decision had nothing to do with safety in the schools. Although a person now has a constitutional right to bear arms, so does a student have a right to go to school and return without the danger of someone else using their right to bear arms.

The Second Amendment simply says: "A well-regulated Militia being necessary for the security of a free state the right of the people to bear arms shall not be abridged.

Schools are not yet a militia, and what may be needed for a militia is not needed for a well-regulated school.

Despite the favorable ruling for "gun owners" from the U.S. Supreme Court, the ultimate battle between them and the safety of children might not yet be over if gun owners pursue their interest in having guns in schools for reasons of safety. Guns should be off the agenda as a means of protecting students in the classrooms.

Our term of "probation" continues and the fear of school violence remains with us until this can be resolved.

It requires great urgency, however. There is ample reason to foresee that such violence in schools or campuses will come again.

We don't need gun control for the safety of classrooms. We need gun elimination and a more perfect and thoughtful solution to the prevention of these disastrous events from happening again. Urgency cannot be over emphasized.